1. Field of The Invention
This invention relates to a foldable framework for supporting a belt conveyor for handling bulk material, and especially a portable or mobile troughed-belt conveyor.
2. Background Art
Troughed-belt conveyors are typically incorporated into processing plants for bulk material (such as coal, soil, gravel and mineral ores), where they are variously used for feeding, transporting, elevating, and stock piling materials around the processing plant. When the processing plant is required to be readily movable from place to place, either around a site or between different sites, it is often found that the lengths of the troughed-belt conveyors render the plant unwieldy and difficult or impossible to move. This is especially the case when plant is to be moved along public road, where there are legal limits to the maximum permissible overall dimensions of vehicles. There is therefore a requirement for a means to enable troughed-belt conveyors to be readily foldable.
Hitherto, portable and mobile processing plant has incorporated foldable conveyors, but such conveyors have often been awkward or dangerous to fold or deploy; they have often needed assistance from a loading shovel or a crane; and they have often been limited to less than optimum deployed lengthy by shortcomings in the folding mechanisms. In other cases, foldable troughed-belt conveyor frameworks have been either excessively complicated, making them expensive and troublesome, or else so ineffectual that they remain bulky and unwieldy even when in their folded positions.